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Ezekiel

About this book
Chapter 43

1 Then he brought me to the gate that faced toward the east. 2 I saw the glory of the God of Israel coming from the east; the sound was like that of rushing water,⁠ and the earth radiated his glory.⁠ 3 It was like the vision I saw when he came to destroy the city, and the vision I saw by the Kebar River. I threw myself face down. 4 The glory of the Lord came into the temple by way of the gate that faces east. 5 Then a wind lifted me up and brought me to the inner court; I watched the glory of the Lord filling the temple. 6 I heard someone speaking to me from the temple, while the man was standing beside me. 7 He said to me: “Son of man, this is the place of my throne and the place for the soles of my feet, where I will live among the people of Israel forever.⁠ The house of Israel will no longer profane my holy name, neither they nor their kings, by their spiritual prostitution or by the pillars of their kings set up when they die. 8 When they placed their threshold by my threshold and their doorpost by my doorpost, with only the wall between me and them, they profaned my holy name by the abominable deeds they committed. So I consumed them in my anger. 9 Now they must put away their spiritual prostitution and the pillars of their kings far from me, and then I will live among them forever. 10 “As for you, son of man, describe the temple to the house of Israel, so that they will be ashamed of their sins and measure the pattern. 11 When they are ashamed of all that they have done, make known to them the design of the temple—its pattern, its exits and entrances, and its whole design—all its statutes, its entire design, and all its laws; write it all down in their sight, so that they may observe its entire design and all its statutes and do them. 12 “This is the law of the temple: The entire area on top of the mountain all around will be most holy. Indeed, this is the law of the temple. 13 “And these are the measurements of the altar: Its base is 1¾ feet high and 1¾ feet wide, and its border 9 inches on its edge. This is to be the height of the altar. 14 From the base of the ground to the lower ledge is 3½ feet, and the width 1¾ feet; and from the smaller ledge to the larger ledge, 7 feet, and the width 1¾ feet; 15 and the altar hearth, 7 feet, and from the altar hearth four horns projecting upward. 16 Now the altar hearth is a perfect square, 21 feet long and 21 feet wide. 17 The ledge is 24½ feet long and 24½ feet wide on four sides; the border around it is 10½ inches, and its surrounding base 1¾ feet. Its steps face east.” 18 Then he said to me: “Son of man, this is what the Sovereign Lord says: These are the statutes of the altar: On the day it is built to offer up burnt offerings on it and to sprinkle blood on it, 19 you will give a young bull for a sin offering to the Levitical priests who are descended from Zadok, who approach me to minister to me, declares the Sovereign Lord. 20 You will take some of its blood and place it on the four horns of the altar, on the four corners of the ledge, and on the border all around; you will purify it and make atonement for it. 21 You will also take the bull for the sin offering, and it will be burned in the appointed place in the temple, outside the sanctuary. 22 “On the second day, you will offer a male goat without blemish for a sin offering. They will purify the altar just as they purified it with the bull. 23 When you have finished purifying it, you will offer an unblemished young bull and an unblemished ram from the flock. 24 You will present them before the Lord, and the priests will scatter salt on them and offer them up as a burnt offering to the Lord. 25 “For seven days you will provide every day a goat for a sin offering; a young bull and a ram from the flock, both without blemish, will be provided. 26 For seven days they will make atonement for the altar and cleanse it, so they will consecrate it. 27 When the prescribed period is over, on the eighth day and thereafter the priests will offer up on the altar your burnt offerings and your peace offerings; I will accept you, declares the Sovereign Lord.”

Texts in conversation

Compare Gudea Cylinders A xxix 5 and Ezekiel 43:2

Ancient Near East, Sumerian · Hebrew Bible

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Summary

Ezekiel describes a renewed temple filled with flowing water and abundance after ruin, echoing a Sumerian hymn about Gudea rebuilding Ningirsu’s temple, where restoration after foreign rule also highlights renewed divine presence.

Passages

Gudea Cylinders A xxix 5

Ancient Near East, Sumerian · The Building of Ningirsu's Temple
1 The seven stelae set up around the temple 2 stand ready to take counsel with its lord. 3 Its funerary chapel is a pure place, 4 as clean as the Abzu. 5 The stone basins set up in the temple 6 are like the holy chamber of the purification priest, where water never ceases to flow. 7 Its lofty battlements, where the doves rest, 8 are like Eridu upon its terrace, 9 where the princess sits.
2125 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in the Gudea Cylinders

Ezekiel 43:2

Hebrew Bible
1 Then he brought me to the gate that faced toward the east. 2 I saw the glory of the God of Israel coming from the east; the sound was like that of rushing water, and the earth radiated his glory. 3 It was like the vision I saw when he came to destroy the city, and the vision I saw by the Kebar River. I threw myself face down. 4 The glory of the Lord came into the temple by way of the gate that faces east.
600–501 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in Ezekiel

References

"... Ezekiel’s final chapters, dazzling in their graphic description of the divine majesty re-establishing residence in the magnificent re-sanctified precincts of a rebuilt temple, conclude with an unmistakable allusion to fertility and abundance (47:9–12). In notably parallel circumstances, Gudea’s temple-building occurs toward the end of the seventy or eighty-year domination of Sumer by a people known as the Gutians. The Gutian invasion, described in the Sumerian lament, “The Curse of Agade,” resulted in dire famine for Sumer, with “misery, want, death and desolation thus threatening to overwhelm practically all ‘mankind fashioned by Enlil’.” After these decades of oppression, the Sumerian people experience a renewal. Gudea builds a temple at the direction of the storm god Ningirsu. The temple’s construction and consecration represent the presence of the god’s blessings of abundance among the people, and may indeed have the same “redemptive” implications as Ezekiel’s visionary temple, that of a people rebuilt at long last after devastation by an invader and many years of foreign oppression. For Gudea, the temple is a sign of the divine presence, bringing with it abundance ... In the final chapters of Ezekiel, YHWH, too, partakes of this image of divine abundance associated with water, though to be sure the associations are attenuated and not always clear-cut. For example, in Ezekiel’s second vision of theophany, the sound of God’s voice is compared to the sound of “the voice of mighty waters,” (Ezekiel 43:2). Ezekiel compares this theophany to his first experience many years before, both specifically located by the river Chebar ..."
Diane M. Sharon, “A Biblical Parallel to a Sumerian Temple Hymn? Ezekiel 40–48 and Gudea,” JANES 24.1 (1996): 99–109.

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Gudea Cylinders A xxix 5 and Ezekiel 43:2

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